For celebrity-obsessed visitors to Los Angeles, it's no longer enough to take a tour of the palatial homes of their favorite stars.

Tour operators now offer visits to the sites where stars and B-level celebrities have died, dined, fought, committed crimes and thrown headline-grabbing tantrums. This month, the largest tour operator in Los Angeles, Starline Tours, will team up with the celebrity news source TMZ to create a guided tour that cruises past the sites where TMZ has reported its biggest celebrity scoops.

Later this summer, Starline will launch a tour of celebrity crime scenes, led by former law enforcement officials who investigated the crimes.

It's an attempt, tour promoters say, to attract the younger visitors who are more interested in the happenings of reality TV stars such as Kim Kardashian than the homes of actors Lucille Ball or Lionel Barrymore.

Keeping current

The TMZ tour will change with each new celebrity scandal, but operators say it may include such spots as the nightclub where "Seinfeld's" Michael Richards went on a racially tinged rant, the high-end department store were actress Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting and the courthouse where Lindsay Lohan is being prosecuted on a grand theft charge.

"People can never get too much of celebrities," Starline spokesman Philip Ferentinos said. "And today the definition of celebrity has changed so much."

Advertisement

As for the crime scene tour, Ferentinos said visitors probably will be taken to the Brentwood condo where O.J. Simpson's wife and her friend Ronald Goldman were killed, the restaurant where actor Robert Blake's wife was slain and the North Hollywood bank where police engaged in a deadly shootout with two heavily armed bank robbers.

Fresh approach

The new tours are only the latest offbeat sightseeing adventures Hollywood has to offer.

A tour that launched in November lets tourists join up with paparazzi on the prowl for unsuspecting celebrities, and for years sightseeing tours fill up daily down the street from Grauman's Chinese Theatre for trips to Hollywood's graves and sites where celebrities died. And in January, a Hollywood history buff launched a guided walking tour of the history of the entertainment industry in the city.

"It's starting to catch on," said Philip Mershon, founder of the Felix in Hollywood Tour Co.

The tourist industry has been roaring back after a dramatic slump during the economic downturn, and local tourism officials say they are rushing to give visitors as many entertainment options as possible, including sightseeing tours.

"There has been an overabundance of tour companies on Hollywood Boulevard recently," said Ana Martinez-Holler, a spokeswoman for the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. "It's crazy."

The new TMZ guided tour was the idea of TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who declined to comment. However, Ferentinos said the tour will be offered on a specially designed 24-seat bus fitted with four 26-inch TV screens. During the tours, the screens will show footage of the celebrity incidents broadcast on the TMZ television show or on the website.

To completely immerse tourists in the world of celebrity-tracking, the TMZ tour bus will be equipped with a video camera to tape any celebrity who happens to pop up along the route. The footage shot on the tour can be sent directly to the TMZ studios for broadcast later that day, Ferentinos said.

"It will be TMZ on wheels," he added.

The crime-scene tour will revive a similar tour that was operated by a former Los Angeles police officer but went out of business five years ago. Ferentinos hopes the tour will be more successful today because of the growing popularity of TV crime shows such as "CSI" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."